Neoliberal accessibility: building
metros under fiscal constraint
A comparative case study of Crossrail in London
and the Noord-Zuidlijn in Amsterdam
Submitted 20-06-2019
by Charlotte Le Vay
student #11779640
Word count: 27, 102
Research Masters
Urban Studies
Supervisor & First Reader: Dr. Federico Savini
Second Reader: Prof. Luca Bertolini
“…capital clearly will flow in a way which bears little relationship to need or the conditions of the least advantaged territory.” –David Harvey, Social Justice and the City, pp. 112
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude for all of those who helped make this research possible. I would first like to give thanks to my supervisor, Federico Savini, who consistently gave me constructive advice and feedback during the numerous road blocks and re-adjustments this thesis went through. His support of my work gave me the confidence to persevere with this research.
I would also like to thank the experts and respondents who were kind enough to take the time to be interviewed and asked questions about their work so that I could gain insight into the process of transport planning in both London and Amsterdam. Their contributions have been invaluable. I would also like to thank researchers at both the Bartlett School of Planning (University College London) and the University of Amsterdam, with specific thanks to Professor Mike Raco, Professor Luca Bertolini and Ori Rubin for taking time to speak with me and giving me advice and direction in my work.
Finally, I would also like to thank my parents, my sister and my friends in both Toronto and Amsterdam for the continuous encouragement and unfailing support throughout this research process. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you.
Summary
Local government is often thought to be the primary provider of local services. This is especially true in the case of regional public-transport. Yet central government decision-making and fiscal power can be a force that affects local government’s ability to provide transport services, and can determine the shape that these services take. In the case of building metros, local governments are often fiscally constrained and must collaborate with the central government or the private sector (or both) to deliver these projects. This thesis draws from research on neoliberalism and post-political theory to reconceptualise the fiscal relationship between central government and local government, and how this relationship subsequently affects local accessibility policy. Taking a multi-scalar perspective, this research seeks to contribute to scholarship at the intersection of neoliberal theory (and discursive practice) in the domain of transport planning to highlight how central fiscal policy affects local government decision-making power in provision of accessibility services. It explores the dynamics of decentralisation and the limitations that local planners face in the wake of centralised austerity measures. Additionally, it looks at the limitations to local revenue raising ability and the alternate avenues localities take to provide accessibility services. This paper used two underground rail transport projects as its case studies: Crossrail 1 in London and the Noord-Zuidlijn in Amsterdam.
Key words: public-transport, decision-making, neoliberalism, decentralisation, London, Amsterdam
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ... 3
Summary... 4
1. Introduction ... 7
1.2 Research questions and aims...9
2. Neoliberalism, the state and post-politics ... 10
2.2 Transport and the state ... 13
2.3 Conceptual Framework: Neoliberalisation of local services, fiscal devolution and austerity ... 16
2.4 Neoliberalisation of local services: effects of decentralisation and fiscal austerity .... 16
3. Methodology ... 20
3.2 Case study design ... 20
3.3 Methodological assumptions ... 20
3.4 Discourse and creating legitimacy ... 21
3.5 Case study selection ... 21
3.6 Methods of analysis ... 23
4. Decentralisation of the state in England and the Netherlands ... 25
4.2 England: From municipal control to neoliberalism ... 25
4.3 Amsterdam: Standardisation of service provision through centralisation ... 28
5. The legacy of Crossrail ... 32
5.2 Post-war establishment of modern planning and the centrality of the car ... 32
5.3 Neoliberal beginnings and development-oriented planning ... 33
5.4 London the global city and the passing of Crossrail through parliament ... 34
5.5 Centralisation of power and a ‘regional-economic’ perspective of Crossrail ... 35
5.6 Boroughs bargaining for accessibility benefits ... 37
5.7 The ‘wider economic benefits’ of Crossrail ... 42
6. Legacy of the Noord-Zuidlijn ... 45
6.2 Entrepreneurial Amsterdam and the ‘Dutch Miracle’... 46
6.3 Building the NoordZuidlijn: Financial setbacks... 47
6.4 Risks of building the line: municipal Amsterdam’s burden ... 47
6.5 Creating legitimacy around the building of the Noord-Zuidlijn ... 50
6.6 Favouring regional accessibility over local accessibility ... 52
7. Learning from thick comparison of Crossrail 1 and the Noord-Zuidlijn... 56
7.2 Some consideration on the methodological shortcomings ... 57
8. Conclusion ... 60
Work Cited List ... 63
Table of Figures Figure 1: Conceptual Model ... 16
Figure 2: Central and municipal control over fiscal and accessibility policy ... 22
Figure 3: Central and municipal control over fiscal and accessibility policy ... 22
Figure 4: Crossrail 1 Map ... 25
Figure 5: Noord-Zuidlijn Map ... 28
Figure 8: 1968 plan for the Amsterdam Metro Network ... 45
I. Annex 1: Data sources London ...72 II. Annex 2: Data sources Amsterdam...77
1. Introduction
Urban metro projects are often posed as vessels of accessibility, promising to bring city dwellers closer to work, leisure and services at an affordable rate. Public transit not only claims benefits of financial and transport accessibility, but also as being in line with goals of sustainability and social welfare.1 Because of these qualities, metro lines are promoted by governments as beneficial vessels for cities that are good for both urban-dwellers and business growth. Metros also allow cities to maintain mobility between critical points of urban-economic function—business (production), living and leisure—which is necessary to be competitive in the global economy. However, the increase in neighbourhood land value and hypermobility caused by metros can also lead to negative social consequences, such as uneven development (Farmer, 2011). Given that accessibility cannot be even evenly spread across cities (this is especially true in the case of metros), localities are therefore unevenly affected by the ‘benefits’ associated with transport under neoliberalism: development and growth. The discrepancy between the social value of public transport-projects (i.e. providing accessibility of movement) and the capital accumulation which public-transport investment facilitates for private companies frequently become conflated in state-sponsored narrative campaigns that promote transport-related development as ‘win-win’ scenarios for the private sector and citizens, through messages of ‘good growth’ and ‘sustainable development’ (Allmendinger & Haughton, 2011).
Neoliberalism is generally considered to be a system which encourages the rolling out of market-based policies, over redistributive welfare policies (Peck et al., 2009; Harvey, 2007). Literature on neoliberalism in urban contexts identifies cities as places of heightened neoliberal policy, including their status as the ‘control nodes’ of concentrated capital and global industrialization (Brenner, 1998; Csomos, 2017). Additionally, it investigates the trends of cities becoming places of entrepreneurialism and ‘growth opportunities’ (Weber, 2010; Harvey, 1989; Leitner, Peck & Sheppard, 2007). Under the guise of efficiency, neoliberalism often encourages decentralisation of service-provision onto localities. The pressure to deliver these is heightened by the implementation of austerity measures at the central government level and the rolling back of welfare services (Besusi, 2012; Rodriguez-Pose & Gill, 2003; Weber 2010). These pressures can push local governments toward private-sector entities to deliver services (Harvey, 1989). Transport-provision is an interesting subject of study given these issues. This is both because of the importance of transport and mobility’s role in cities maintaining their global competitive advantage (Keil & Young, 2008) and because of its ability to propel land development projects between competing locations, which lead to the uneven development within and outside of urban areas (Siemiatycki, 2011; Farmer, 2011).
Urban metro projects are frequently a product of decision-making between several entities. Municipal governments are often the local transport service provider, however large and expensive local transport projects, such as metros, can require the financial transfers from higher levels of government and, sometimes, from the private sector. Thus, fiscal power can be a guiding force in the narrative and decision-making of local accessibility policy. Tensions relating to this power balance can arise between entities involved in delivering the project. This research draws on neoliberal theory within the theoretical framework of post-politics to understand the fiscal
relationship between central government and local government. Additionally, it uses this lens to look at how decisions about metros are made by these different entities, and how their relationship subsequently affects local accessibility policy. Due to its multi-level analytic frame, neoliberal theory can help explain the pressures for growth that are present at various levels of government during the decision-making process of building metro projects. Post-political theory can help demonstrate the discursive practice of neoliberalism, which often manifests in consensus-based discourse around government policies (Allmendinger & Haughton, 2012; Raco & Lin, 2012; Swyngedouw, 2009). However, much of the research in these fields do not look at the neoliberalisation of transport provision from a level government perspective. Taking a multi-scalar approach, this research seeks to highlight how centralised fiscal policy affects the conceived value of urban transport projects at the central government level, and how these values imposed through austerity measures affects local government decision-making power in the provision of accessibility services.
This research will examine the case of Crossrail 1 in London and also of the Noord-Zuidlijn in Amsterdam, and will focus on the multi-level governmental dynamics of transport provision within the context of their fiscal policy. This research has found that central government financial contributions to metro projects have influenced decision-making in such a way as to maximise the economic engines of these cities respectively (i.e. links to London’s financial districts, and the proposed extension of the Noord-Zuidlijn to Schiphol Airport). In London, both the decision-making and fiscal power over Crossrail 1 remained in the hands of central government and thus localities had to develop local strategies conducive to a growth agenda to gain accessibility benefits to their areas. By contrast, in Amsterdam, while the fiscal power over the line was in the hands of the central government, decision-making power remained in the hands of the municipal government. This imbalance led to financial risks being put on the municipality, decision-making power being in the hands of the municipal government also allowed the municipality to prioritise its own accessibility policy over that of the central government. Lastly, both projects used discursive tactics to legitimize the growth-oriented accessibility promoted by these metros, however, Amsterdam’s appeal to ‘bottom-up’ public-consultation initiatives were more important, due to the project being built entirely with public-money, while business-contribution in Crossrail 1 legitimated a stronger growth-oriented discourse.
1.2 Research questions and aims My central research question is:
How do fiscal policy structures impact local accessibility policy? My sub-research questions are:
What external socio-economic factors influence the decision-making process in building metros?
How is discourse used by both levels of government to justify the spatial-accessibility decisions of building metros?
This thesis presents as follows: it begins with a literature review of the relevant theories and their various limits and uses. Next it presents a conceptual framework for the technical aspects of decentralisation and fiscal policy, then a section on the methodology employed. Following, it presents a background of the case studies: London and Amsterdam, then presents the case studies and the findings of this research. Following, I offer a comparative reflection of the cases, the limitations of the work, and end with a conclusive chapter.
2. Neoliberalism, the state and post-politics
The term neoliberalism has been used widely both in academic research and colloquially to describe the political-economic realities of late 20th and early 21st century. This ideology gained prominence in the late 1970s and the early 1980s ‘…as a strategic political response to the declining profitability of mass production industries and the crisis of Keynesian-welfarism.’ (Peck et al., 2009, p. 50). It is broadly, a system which ‘…mobilize[s] a range of policies intended to extend market discipline, competition and commodification throughout society.’ (Peck et al., 2009, p. 50). However, this term is difficult to define as it is not a static, and it is continuously in evolution and adaptation to the socio-political context in which it is situated. Thus, one cannot create a template for this form of governance (Brenner et al., 2010; Harvey, 2007). Ontologically, neoliberalism is relational, and implies that a given form of neoliberalism is affected by the one that came before it, and subsequently transforms the institutional and ideological configuration that comes after it (Brenner, Peck, & Theodore, 2010, p. 332).
Neoliberalism is generally understood to be a global phenomenon, centering on market competition and the commodification of public sector entities. It has place-specific characteristics, is in constant evolution, and responds to its previous and parallel iterance (Brenner et al., 2010, p. 329). It operates at many scales, which means it is at once hegemonic and present globally (through the geo-monetary and globalization network) and it has iterances in transnational institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank (Brenner et al., 2010, p. 335). But the shape of neoliberalism in the supra-national context does not define its form at other scales because it is unevenly developed, meaning that it has different expressions both on the inter-national and at the intra-national level (Brenner et al., 2010, p. 331). Furthermore, the state (and its institutions) play an important role in neoliberalism: state institutions are reconfigured in favour of mechanisms that benefit market-competition and commodification of the private sector (Harvey, 2007). Under neoliberal regimes, governments tend to create more certain investment opportunities to attract private sector investment in public infrastructure and service provision (Legacy, 2016, p. 3110). Neoliberalism’s effects on fiscal policy is thus shaped by the supra-national context of globalization, market exchange and competition. It is adapted to national contexts and is then distributed to sub-national governments and constituencies which are affected by (and adapted) differently based on the local socio-economic contexts.
Since the 1980s, many western states have taken a neoliberal turn and faced austerity measures as part of their national fiscal policies. Under this ideology, states have engaged in policy shifts such as the selling of public assets and the increase of private-sector presence in state bureaucratic management as a method of reducing public expenditure, and increasing service-provision ‘efficiency’ (Harvey, 2007). England presents a prototypical example of the rolling out of neoliberalism fiscal agenda. Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, the central government (notably propelled by the government of Margaret Thatcher) leaned towards privatization which resulted in an increase not only of services being contracted out to the private sector, but in the private ownership of public infrastructure (Raco, 2013; Raco & Lin, 2012, p. 193). Such fiscal moves from central government have been legitimized through the argument that private companies are more ‘efficient’ and that contracts “…are explicitly designed to be ‘politically-neutral’ and are designed to be free of political interference of newly elected governments, or active community-groups and individuals.” (Raco, 2013, p. 51). From a central government level, such
changes represent the implementation of the neoliberal ideology and thus: “…the belief that open, competitive and unregulated markets, liberated from state interference and the action of social collectivities, represent the optimal mechanism for socio-economic development.” (Peck, Theodore & Brenner, 2009, p. 50).
Cities are important in the discussion of neoliberalism because they represent the active places of its expression. Under the pressures of central austerity measures, cities have become the sites of funding-cuts. This has not only led them to look to new sources of revenue, but devolutionary tendencies of the central government have left them with limited resource to attend and address the social needs and problems within cities (Eisinger, 1998). Due to these reduced resources and new found autonomy (associated with the rolling back of Keynesian welfarism) some cities have taken an entrepreneurial approach toward revenue raising and governing (Weber, 2010; Harvey, 1989). Furthermore, this entrepreneurial turn, has changed the logic of city management away from local issues and toward focusing on pressures to compete with other cities for investment, and adopting a rationality of making cities conducive to attracting capital (Leitner, Peck & Sheppard, 2007). Finally, major cities due to their positionality as hubs of multi-national corporations have become ‘command and control’ nodes of national and the global economy (Brenner, 1998; Csomos, 2017), and thus are of particular interest to national government in their centrality to the national economy and their potential for economic growth.
Within the context of this research, post-politics is used to analyze the discursive practice of neoliberal policy agendas in transport planning. Post-political debate argues that within the western-liberal context and especially under neoliberal regimes ‘true’ democratic debate is replaced by consensus-based politics. Within this, complex governance systems use fuzzy narrative tools to appeal to ‘universally attractive’ concepts, to pursue a –usually growth-driven—agendas. Not only are post-political and neoliberal agendas in parallel, but they are in consequence to one another: “[p]ostpoliticism’s conceptual origins lie in debates within political science on changing form and democratic politics under neoliberalism and the propagation of socially and economically ‘progressive’ forms of…governance…” (Raco & Lin, 2012, p. 193). It follows that cities following the ‘progressive form’ of governance prescribe neoliberal policy and post-democratic consensus-based processes.
Part-and-parcel of post-political theory is attention to the rise of technocratic management which is used to govern and legitimize the replacement of political debate in policy formation (Swyngedouw, 2009). More specifically “[i]n post-politics, political contradictions are reduced to policy problems to be managed by experts are legitimated through participatory processes in which the scope of the outcomes is narrowly defined in advance.” (Wilson & Swyngedouw, 2014, p. 6) Thus, political debate is reduced to the problems of ‘politically-neutral managers,’ and by extension ‘rational’ technologies that are promoted as best able to manage the ‘internal problems’ and ‘wrinkles’ of the liberal western political system. Technology is a tool which can be used by politics, though technology is not inherently political. As evoked by Latour, “…science (and technology) is not reducible to politics but it offers other means whereby political affects may be achieved – thereby defining the realm of science and technology as not reducible to politics per se, but none the less as thoroughly political.” (Metzger et al., 2014, p. 16). Indeed, it is the credibility of science’s
techno-rationalist governance the opportunity for decisions and policy prescriptions can be legitimated using the ‘best’ technology.
Examining discursive practice using a post-political lens demonstrates how growth-based economic and urban policy is introduced and reinforced by its trans-national appeal of ‘sustainability’ and ‘compact cities’ (for example). This is dispersed into the built environment through the discursive practices of constructing cities: ‘[w]ith a political orientation that emphasizes freedom of choice, individual responsibility and greater freedom for market forces comes a desire to materialize these values in the built environment.” (Tunstrom & Bradley, 2014, p. 79). This demonstrates the way that neoliberalism, through its relatively loose and yet appealing discourse, can adapt to varying discourses around cities and can significantly alter fiscal policy with regards to an existing social need and policy-arena. For instance, while under a system of social welfare a service may be deemed a necessity, under neoliberalism it is also seen as a growth opportunity. Thus, neoliberalism and welfare discourse can co-exist. Policies which promote density, mixed-use development can be related to housing need and adopted by the sustainability discourse but are also squarely in line with development opportunities and economic growth.
Spatial planning has emerged as a field compatible with ‘consensus-building narratives’ because it can absorb perspectives and thus avoid conflict by appealing to many interests (i.e. community groups, development, etc.) and offer something to each (such as promoting issues of sustainability) (Allmendinger & Haughton, 2012, p. 92). Despite the freedom which localities supposedly have within the neoliberal planning system to make allocative decisions about service provision, services provided through privatization and contractualism can create long-term service-provision arrangements which are impenetrable to political debate (Wilson & Swyngedouw, 2014, p. 11). Furthermore, we might consider that the impenetrability of this neoliberal policy (including fiscal policy) represents a kind of vicious cycle, which is at once reproduced at various levels of government through austerity measures that demand collaboration with market-competitive entities and limits political opposition through its consensus-based technology-driven narrative logic. Thus, given that the hegemonic ideology of neoliberal fiscal policy promoted at higher levels (i.e. central government), the local level represents in many ways the arena where the consequences of the neoliberal order are manifest. For the localities, the ‘breaking down’ of the traditional planning system, have muddied the ‘traditionally’ established role of planners through which welfare services are distributed by politically-accountable agents who work in the public interest (Raco, 2013, p. 46).
The post-political condition runs parallel to neoliberalism and is well adapted to planning, in part due to fiscal austerity measures that strive for ‘efficiency’ (thus doing more with less resources), which can happen most productively under un-contested (consensus-based) policy field, justified through an inherently ‘neutral’ technological decision-making apparatus. For central government, the neoliberal inevitability of planning policy posits that urban centres are vital to national economies and should sustain growth. This transforms the position of fiscal-policy vis-à-vis planning from a welfarist-notion of provis-à-vision, to the economic potential of planning through development and promoting competition. However, at the local level, neoliberal policy can lead to a lack of accountability and service-provision can suffer. This is because growth-opportunities are different across space, and can thus lead to large differentiations between services provided.
2.2 Transport and the state
In justice theory, distribution of the transport good is often thought of based along the lines of its most important value. Thus, when discussing transport policy, it is important to think about it in conjunction with the notion of its value, accessibility (Martens, 2012; Pereira, Schwanen, & Banister, 2017). From a justice perspective, Karel Martens has written extensively about transport justice, and emphasizes that accessibility (a social good) is the primary basis on which transport should be judged, and that accessibility is linked to freedom of movement and freedom of choice (Martens, 2012). Furthermore, Pereira et al. confirm that accessibility is the most important variable dimension when thinking about the transport, and add that “…[the] primary purpose of transport policy is to improve access to places, activities, and opportunities people have reason to value.” (Pereira et al., 2017, p. 178). Thus, justice literature reminds us to focus on the
value of accessibility within transport policy, as it is expressed in the process of decision-making and
policy narratives.
In the urban context, literature on transport and urban infrastructure development demonstrate public-transport’s influence on uneven socio-spatial development and the rise of transport-related inequality. This literature points to (1) the effect of globalised production on local infrastructure and (2) the effect of neoliberalism and fiscal austerity on local infrastructure. To attract global firms, cities invest in infrastructure to ease connection to both places within and outside of the city. This is a measure cities take to display their competitive advantage, which include ‘seamless’ travel to airports and international transport hubs (Farmer, 2011, p. 1156-57). Secondly, under neoliberal contexts of centralised fiscal austerity, cities have become increasingly responsible for financing local infrastructure and transport (among other services) or abandon them all together. As central government funds reduce, cities not only become dependent on local tax revenues, but in some cases, lure the financial resources of corporations and foster a ‘good for business’ attitude towards infrastructure development (Farmer, 2011, p. 1156), and to make up for the spending gap of centralised fiscal austerity. Some financially-restricted city governments also turn to public-private partnerships (PPPs) to finance infrastructure, which can result in private partners seeking to invest in geographies and projects that are ‘lower risk’ and promise more ‘economic growth’ (Siemiatycki, 2011). These modes of public-transport service provision are often promoted as a way to improve and expand the provision of public-transport (Siemiatycki, 2011, p. 1709), yet critics point out that these market-led modes of public-service provision predictably privilege certain core geographies over more peripheral ones (Siemiatycki, 2011, p. 1708). Furthermore, even though PPPs promise to use the private sector to meet investment targets and consequently fulfil public interest objectives, they often work to attract private sector interest and act as “…[mechanisms] to achieve the same unfettered market delivery of infrastructure as outright privatization and deregulation.” (Siemiatycki, 2011, p. 1720). Thus, the neoliberal effect on transport-planning leads to a system of project financing whereby cities invest in public infrastructure to enhance their ‘business climate,’ which is often incompatible with equity-driven planning of public-transport infrastructure. ‘Rational’ and technology-based arguments for the adoption of this type of investment promoting ‘win-win’ scenarios are used to create legitimacy around this mode of project delivery.
relationship between transport and uneven socio-spatial development to a lack of a critical approach of transport policy which inform how ‘scarce funds’ are distributed (2018). They note there are three main theoretical frames of transport politics—neoclassical, sustainable and political economic. The neoclassical and sustainable frames emphasise a ‘rational’ and ‘politically neutral’ view of transport policy and mobility behaviour-view of transport-policy formation in a de-politicised ‘scientific’ way (Kębłowski & Bassens, 2018, p. 422). Alternatively, the political-economy frame interrogates transport planning on the social, political and economic way in which it is produced and raises questions on whose interests are addressed in transport policy (Keblowski & Bassens, 2018, p. 422). The authors note that the former ‘rationalist’ frames remain the dominant logic of much policy and academic transport policy (Keblowski & Bassens, 2018, p. 430). Similarly, Willson distinguishes ‘scientific rationality’ from ‘communicative rationality’ in language and communicative process which form the basis of transport policy, citing that the former is dominant in transport planning and informs a technologically-dominated hegemonic understanding of transport problems and hinders new approaches to transport solutions (2001). These authors offer a critical perspective of transport planning, its underlying value of accessibility, and problematize the ‘techno-rational’ underpinnings of transport-planning.
Part and parcel of establishing market-forces and a growth-oriented logic to local policy development, is diminishing the arena of debate over which types of transport will be developed. The little work that has been conducted on post-political theory and transport planning (Legacy 2016; 2018), and even the work on transport planning in the centralised and highly privatised policy context of England (Bickerstaff & Walker, 2005; Raco, 2013), tend to focus on the ways in which public participation mechanism in planning have been, and continue to be increasingly limited. For instance, demonstrating how public participation mechanisms only allow citizens to respond to existing design concepts (Legacy, 2018), and how the contractual nature of private transport provision limits how much citizens and groups can influence service-provision decisions (Raco, 2013). Australian scholar Crystal Legacy focuses on the demise of the space of political debate and political participation in Australian transport planning and notes that not only is debate is reduced to a technocratic policy problem, but the avenues for citizen participations are so limited that they do not fundamentally question the nature of the transport project or the form of mobility that it prioritizes.
Under neoliberalism, politics represents the institutionalization of market-competition and growth into public policy. Fiscal policy, thus reflects these ideals through processes such as privatization and contractualism which is justified through techno-rationalist approaches to create consensus around neoliberal policy decisions. Transport is no exception to these forces. At the local level transport development is often experienced through accessibility as opportunities for growth in the surrounding area. However, given that accessibility cannot be even evenly spread across cities and neighbourhoods (this is especially true in the case of metros), localities become unevenly affected by the ‘benefits’ associated with transport under neoliberalism: development and growth. Furthermore, austerity at the central government level is often manifested through the form of reduced government transfers, which can corner local government to adopt similar neoliberal policies and engage with the private sector to make up the funding gap. In their turn, governments also have to justify these ‘new’ transport objectives through discursive tactics. The next section outlines the concepts that this study proposes to analyse, keeping in mind the
neoliberal and a discursive lens, within the context of fiscal policy and accessibility policy. To conceptualise the mechanisms of these phenomena within the context of transport-planning, it also explores related processes such as decentralisation to help describe the technical parameters of the relationship between centralized fiscal policy and local accessibility policy.
2.3 Conceptual Framework: Neoliberalisation of local services, fiscal devolution and austerity
Figure 1: Conceptual Model
This conceptual framework demonstrates the multi-level dynamic of service provision for local transport schemes. The framework is multi-scalar and distinguishes between the level of central government (dark blue box) and the municipal government level (light blue box). Additionally, it underlines the key role of fiscal policy, which is both an influence on the types of transport-projects that are built, and the types of accessibility that these projects create. Fiscal policy is an important dimension in the case of transport-planning because in many cities, local government is overwhelmingly the local provider of services (including accessibility services) and central government has a large role to play in fiscal transfers and policy to the local government level. Fiscal policy determined at the central government level can have a significant effect on the ability of local government to perform their roles as public-service providers, and so forces that have an influence central government fiscal policy, can also impact local government funds. Additionally, changes in decentralisation can disrupt local authorities and affect their service provision ability. This model also conceptualises and operationalizes neoliberal and post-political theory, at the central government level to explain the formation of fiscal policy, as well as the discourse surrounding the benefits of transport and how it should be delivered.
2.4 Neoliberalisation of local services: effects of decentralisation and fiscal austerity
This multi-scalar model alludes to the two sides of service provision: responsibility for service-delivery and access to the resources to deliver those services. Decentralisation plays an important role in accessibility policy because it illuminates the tensions between local and central
Fiscal
autonomy Accessibility Policy
Decision-Making Process Global Economic Integration Local Connectivity Private sector involvement in governance Discourse on the benefits transport transport transtransport Governance
Structure Fiscal Policy
Municipal government level
A
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ity
government—as those who should be responsible for service provision, and those who should be responsible for allocating resources. Debate over decentralisation lies in the idea that balance must be achieved between localities, who are in a better position to serve the constituents to which they are close, and central government, who is better able to allocate funding equitably over regions and oversee a standard of service provision in a country (Bird, 1999). Furthermore, devolution is complex because it involves two key factors: ‘decentralisation of authority and responsibility’ and ‘decentralisation of resources’ (Rodríguez-Pose & Gill, 2003). Central governments tend to prefer to devolve responsibilities while devolving as few resources as possible, while sub-national governments tend to prefer the opposite (Rodriguez-Pose & Gill, 2003, p. 334). Moreover, rarely does the devolution of responsibility happen simultaneously with the devolution of resources, because “…the driving actor behind devolutionary efforts will invariably have incentive to try and separate these two factors one way or another.” (Rodriguez-Pose & Gill, 2003, p. 344). This can inevitably have consequences on debt at either level of government because of “…a steady erosion of the linkage of local decisions to their financial consequences…” (Rodriguez-Pose & Gill, 2003, p.344). Thus, changes in fiscal policy inevitably have direct consequences for service-provision, which is especially true when fiscal policy and service provision change jurisdictional levels because devolution often involves an imbalance between service-provision responsibility and the devolution of resources to carry out these tasks.
Arguments for decentralisation have several foundations some based on economic factors, others on matters of regional identity and even democratic arguments of strengthening civil society (Bessusi, 2012, p. 10). More recently, economic arguments for decentralisation have taken over. Under neoliberalism, central governments engaging in austerity and fiscal retrenchment measures often piggyback the arguments of decentralisation of responsibility of ‘bringing decision-making closer to those effected’ and allow localities to ‘adapt to the local context’ to place the burden of financing service provision onto localities (Savini, 2017, p. 858). There have been several spatial consequences of fiscal devolution in the urban context. An important consequence, often argued by critical neoliberal scholars is that: “…fiscal autonomy is accompanied by a reliance on non-mobile assets such as urban developments and the building stock.” (Bessusi, 2012, p. 11). This leads local government to choose local development strategies which boost their coffers and subsequently change the spatial fabric of the city into one where “…local authorities’ development strategies are allegedly based not only on planning objectives but also on the assessment of the potential financial benefits arising from certain types of development…” (Bessusi, 2012, p. 11). Thus, fiscal austerity and decentralisation at the central government level can not only alter land-use in cities, but is also justified through ‘efficiency’ arguments of bringing decision-making closer to those effected.
However, local governments trying to capture rising land-values not only occurs because of limited income streams due to fiscal austerity measures and devolution of welfare responsibilities, but also because other fiscally restrictive centralised policy measures, such as caps on local taxes, block local governments from accessing sufficient public revenue streams (Weber, 2010, p. 257). Furthermore, the increasingly complex forms of finance mechanisms embedded with local government, which under neoliberalism are increasingly entangled with the private sector, means that local government often must add the personnel necessary to manage these transactions both in-house and hiring outside advisors (Weber, 2010, 256). In some cases, such as
a local ‘entrepreneurial logic’ that is, for localities to team up with local business and ‘plug the funding gap’ provided to localities because of austerity measures (Raco & de Souza, 2018).
Nevertheless, as emphasised in neoliberal theory, austerity measures at the central government level does not mean that it retrenches from its role in planning, rather, it has a hand in steering local government planning logic toward growth and becoming urban economic ‘champions’ (Savini, Majoor, & Salet, 2015, p. 458). This is because local governments (especially (inter)nationally significant cities such as London and Amsterdam) are important to the national economy, and overall cuts may threaten their position as economic engines (Cepiku, Mussari, & Giordano, 2016, p. 230). Thus, central government has an interest in maintaining a certain level of control over municipalities to steer local policy towards growth-based solution. At the local level, though neoliberal governments have been driven to turn to the private sector to provide local services, they are still an important political force in these transactions because they have the ability to manufacture investment instruments and create new assets, regulate the income streams around assets (such as controlling the real estate process) and are able to use this control to pressure private actors into contributing public services for localities (Weber, 2010, p. 453).
Public transport, and metros in particular, are an interesting arena to observe the intersection between fiscal responsibility and devolution, because they are often funded or partly funded by national governments. Additionally, they can have significant impacts for cities and neighbourhoods in which they are located: both at the local level because of the new accessibility they provide, and at a higher level because of the status and ‘attractiveness’ of city. Infrastructure is an important element to both keep and attract business, and is seen as essential for growth, because “[i]nfrastructure is the great space shrinker, and power, wealth increasingly belong to those who know how to shrink space, or know how to benefit from space being shrunk.” (Flyvbjerg, Bruzelius, & Rothengatter, 2003, p. 2). Public transportation is thus a domain that is important to the competition for global capital, and attracts global firms to these spaces (Farmer, 2011, p. 1156). But public-transport development, especially metros, can result in uneven spatial development across the city, in which the accessibility advantages are overwhelmingly experienced by the city’s wealthier residents and where “…residents outside of the myopic global city vision are finding it difficult to obtain development dollars for their communities.” (Farmer, 2011, p. 1157). So, while central governments often participate financing and planning metros, they often do not participate in equalizing ‘uneven’ spatial development caused by transport projects. Propelled by the capital that it attracts and the accessibility value that it brings, public transport, especially metros, valorize the land around them, and promote urban land redevelopment projects (Farmer, 2011, p. 1157). Thus, public-transport not only allows us to look at the ways in which the state engages in fiscal retrenchment and decentralisation of responsibility and how localities deal with cuts to their budgets, but also how it engages and remains active in planning and even financing certain accessibility projects it deems nationally important.
Overall, fiscal policy at the central government level is shaped by varying factors, which in its turn influences the ability of localities to provide accessibility to their citizens. In theory devolution, should allow: “…the devolved administration to prioritise different areas…[yet] the devolved administrations lack substantial revenue raising powers of their own…” (Shaw et al., 2009, p. 548), so devolution does not necessarily result in the ultimate local freedom to determine policy. Neoliberalism plays an important role in not only influencing how funds should be distributed and spent (i.e. fiscal austerity), but also on the discourse about the nature of service-provision that reflects the financialisation of services, global city status, and decentralisation of
service responsibility. In terms of accessibility policy, transport-planners and local government are constrained by the circumstances in which fiscal policy leaves them, and is thus an important factor for understanding why and how modern metro projects are built.
3. Methodology
3.2 Case study design
This research uses the case study method to examine the role of central fiscal policy on local accessibility services, within the context of two cross-capital transport projects: Crossrail 1 – London’s West to East rail line and the Noord-Zuidlijn, Amsterdam’s North to South rail line. Accordingly: “[t]he case study is typically the detailed and intensive examination of one or a very small number of cases.” (Becker et al., 2017, 225). Furthermore, as Creswell suggests, “…some case studies generate theory, some are simply description of cases, and others are more analytical in nature and display cross-case or inter-site comparisons.” (Creswell, 2013, p. 246). While this study leans towards a descriptive two-case design, it also subscribes to the general value of case studies which is to “…shap[e] the larger structure of the written narrative.” (Creswell, 2013, p. 246). Furthermore, guided by a how question, this research also supports the scientific value of the case study method as put forth by Becker et al.: “[t]he case study researcher does not claim that the chosen case is somehow representative and can therefore be generalised to a wider universe of cases. Instead, the arguments for case studies are largely to do with the ability to generate findings that are theoretically interesting and are capable of being taken up by other researchers for future elaboration.” (Becker et al., 2017, 225). Thus, a method that produces contextual results is well suited to my research question—how do fiscal policy structures impact local accessibility policy?
3.3 Methodological assumptions
Based on theoretical underpinnings outlined in the literature review, this comparative case study rest on a set of assumptions:
(1) The process of decision-making in urban transport project is guided by fiscal austerity measures;
(2) The trajectory of infrastructure is determined by increasing land value;
(3) Decisions surrounding growth-based policies excludes dissent through discursive practice.
These assumptions reflect neoliberal theory which posit that states engaged in this governance system adapt their decision-making logic toward state retrenchment (fiscal austerity) and promotes growth and ‘good for business’ climates to maximise service-provision ‘efficiencies’ (Peck, Theodore & Brenner, 2009). Furthermore, they reflect the local consequences of this logic, which suggest that under the pressures of decentralisation and austerity, local governments move to gain revenue through methods like benefiting from increases in land value triggered by infrastructure-based mobility improvements (Weber, 2010; Farmer, 2011). Finally, the last assumption rest on post-political theory which illuminates the discursive elements of neoliberalism, and posits that governments form consensus-based narratives around policies to minimise the scope of dissent around projects that service a narrow (growth-based) political hegemonic paradigm (Wilson & Swyngedouw, 2014).
3.4 Discourse and creating legitimacy
This research examines the discourse surrounding the construction of both metro projects. Discursive practice is an important tactic used to depoliticise policy-making, and create consensus around these policies. This is also true in the case of devolution where: “…understanding…the interaction between legitimacy and the transfer of resources and authority is imperative to examination of devolutionary trends.” (Rodriguez-Pose & Gill, 2003, p. 336). The post-political framework provides a critical lens to look at the language and tactics used by central and local government to create legitimacy around their projects. It also posits that governments amalgamate seemingly conflicting discourses to create legitimacy and avoid opposition to a given policy or project. In accordance with neoliberalism, examining discourse of policy-trends and explanations for devolving of power and or resources to local levels of government helps to not only discern which localities and forms of accessibility a government prioritises, but also the discursive tactics it uses to build support for these policies.
3.5 Case study selection
The main comparative elements of my research (units of analysis) within my case studies are fiscal policy at the central government level, local fiscal power, and local accessibility policy. Furthermore, Yin cautions that cases about local services should specify the services which are to be covered and “…for almost any topic that might be chosen, are specific time boundaries to define the beginning and end of the case.” (Yin, 2009 p. 32) For the case of Crossrail 1 and the Noord-Zuidlijn, I focused specifically on accessibility policy (that is where stations are built, how these decisions were taken, and how they were communicated to the public). In my case studies, time frames were difficult to establish because these projects have planning histories spanning decades and their development effects continue today and for the foreseeable future. Thus, I took the dates in which debate over funding for each project entered decision-making for each project as the start date (i.e. Crossrail bill entered parliament in 2005; and decision for the Noord-Zuidlijn was made by the municipal council in 1996), and the end data was more difficult to establish as the accessibility of both lines have yet to be (Crossrail 1 has not opened) or are beginning to be felt. Thus, to establish an end date for the data, thematic rather than temporal relevance was of higher importance in the data collected and analysed.
Furthermore, I follow a comparative analysis strategy outlined Chris Pickvance of plural causation. Plural causation suggests that different causes, their weights and their values can come together in different ways to bring about the same or similar phenomena (Pickvance, 2005, p. 6). This falls under the ontological lens of critical realism which posits that human knowledge can only capture a small part of a larger reality, and that to get closer to social reality and gain knowledge, one must engage with theory which ‘help us identify causal mechanism driving social events, activities, or phenomena, are formed using rational judgement of these social events.’ (Fletcher, 2016, p. 182). Accordingly, I engaged in the process of retroduction which ‘investigates particular social conditions under which a causal mechanism takes effect in the world.’ (Fletcher, 2016, p. 183). This method of analysis focuses on causal mechanisms and conditions, and reasons by ‘…mov[ing] from concrete to abstract and back again…’ (Fletcher, 2016, p. 189). Thus, based on my aforementioned assumptions, this comparative method allowed me to examine Amsterdam and London. Both cities engage in various forms of neoliberal policy and that have built cross-city
metro lines to improve their accessibility to reflect being a ‘global competitive’ city, but nonetheless have different histories and structures of fiscal policy and levels of state retrenchment.
The tables below display a general idea of the level of central, regional and local government control over fiscal and accessibility policy, and form the basis of my comparative analysis. It also follows that local government’s position vis-à-vis development and private sector involvement changes based on the nature of fiscal austerity in each country, the level of control over revenue-raising ability, and responsibility for local transport development. Visually, they display the vulnerabilities of the local government toward decentralisation policy regarding their level of fiscal control.
Figure 2: Central and municipal control over fiscal and accessibility policy
England Government Level
Fiscal Policy Accessibility Policy
National xxxxx xxx
Regional xx xx
Local x xxx
* this table shows the decision making-power of each policy arena at each level of government. This table also is specifically for fiscal and accessibility in England, since other countries in the UK (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) have devolved fiscal and welfare powers which they administer separately (ISOCARP, 2015). This table is based on my interpretation of decision-making and fiscal power allocation between levels of government.
Figure 3: Central and municipal control over fiscal and accessibility policy
Netherlands Government Level
Fiscal Policy Accessibility Policy
National xxxx xx
Regional x xxx
Local xx xxxx
* this table shows the decision making-power of each policy arena at each level of government (ISOCARP, 2015). This table is based on my interpretation of decision-making and fiscal power allocation between levels of government.
Wholly, we can explore how neoliberal transport policy flourishes in cities with relatively high levels of grant revenue and how it flourishes in a city with lower levels of state-support and local revenue. Pickvance’s method helps deal with the unique trajectories of each city, and ultimately why they have both ended up with cross-capital metro projects, as Pickvance explains: “...the diversity of causal processes created by the different patterns of development of different societies should be a prime focus of analysis and we should seek to build these into our explanations rather than rely on models of explanation which force us to exclude them.” (Pickvance, 2005, p. 8). This last statement is certainly true for the case of Amsterdam, where a focus on neoliberalism and consensus-building discourse might edge us to ignore the relatively strong levels of public expenditures (compared to England) on public projects in the Netherlands, however, it allows me to include it.
3.6 Methods of analysis
This research was carried over two periods of fieldwork. The period for fieldwork in London was conducted between October and December of 2018, and that of Amsterdam between February and June of 2019. I used two overarching methods for this research, the first was conducting a content analysis on policy documents, pertaining to fiscal policy, transport policy and published in various mediums (policy documents, promotional material, newspaper articles, parliamentary minutes, council minutes, government reports, think-tank reports, etc). The second was to examine decision-making and planning practice by conducting semi-structured interviews with participants in the transport sector (both working in the private and public sector). I conducted three expert interviews in London and three in Amsterdam.
First, I conducted a content analysis on policy documents to follow the logic of decision-making and financing in the building of the Noord-Zuidlijn and Crossrail 1, and to a more limited extent, the discourse in promoting these projects. Qualitative content analysis is a method that: “…goes beyond merely counting words to examining language intensely for the purpose of classifying large amounts of text into an efficient number of categories that represent similar meanings. These categories can represent either explicit communication or inferred communication.” (Hseih & Shannon, 2005, 1278) Thus this method allowed me to breakdown, categorise and identify elements within neoliberal theory, post-political theory and work on devolution to identify theoretical themes within the analysed texts. This content analysis was conducted roughly in two steps: firstly, I collected parliamentary and council minutes at pivotal ‘decision-making’ periods (i.e. from 2005, when the Crossrail bill entered parliament, and council minutes from 1996 when the Noord-Zuidlijn was decided on), and within these documents, created a first round of general codes to distinguish between relevant elements such as ‘decision-making,’ ‘who pays’ and ‘objections.’ I also transcribed and coded my interviews with these general codes. In the second round of coding (this round of coding was mostly done manually), I examined the dynamics within these codes to both isolate some more specific themes, and secondly, to see if I could identify key elements from neoliberal theory or post-political theory (such as ‘entrepreneurial logic’ or ‘consensus-building’). Finally, after gathering my data, I examined the specific codes for patterns or tensions to gather into ‘findings’ on the decision-making process of these lines. To a lesser extent, I conducted this coding method on certain policy documents to extract the discursive themes.
Furthermore, I conducted qualitative interviews with private-sector and public-sector actors working in the transport sector, with experience and knowledge of the respective lines. I undertook semi-structured qualitative interviews, relying on background reading of planning and fiscal policy to collect data on the decision-making processes, as well as the agreements and disagreements that occurred during the process of developing Crossrail 1 and the North-South line. Semi-structured interviews “…incorporates both more open-ended and more theoretically driven questions, eliciting data grounded in both open-ended and theoretically driven questions, eliciting data grounded in the experience of the participant as well as data guided by existing constructs in the particular discipline under research (Galletta, 2013, p. 45). My interview questions drew from elements of neoliberal theory, such as questions about growth-oriented development, financial cuts, and from post-political theory, such as asking questions about the level of public-participation. However, my questions were also ‘open-ended’ in the sense that they allowed the
the line that they believed were of importance, and to capture their views on the decision-making process.
4. Decentralisation of the state in England and the
Netherlands
In this section, I will give an overview of the history of planning and decentralisation in both England and the Netherlands. This section provides the multi-scalar context in which service provision has been delivered in each country, and the ways that this has changed throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.
Crossrail 1 is a significant transport project spanning from West to East over 118-kilometre, 42 kilometres of which is underground, and will pass through central London. It connects central London, as well as two central business districts (Bond Street and Canary Wharf) to neighbouring counties (Reading to the west, and Shenfield to the east), with a connection to Heathrow Airport. The London portion of Crossrail 1, named the Elizabeth line, was scheduled to open in December 2018, however the entire project has been pushed back and could be delayed until 2021, and an additional 1.7 bn pounds has been secured and added to the 14.8-billion-pound price tag to finish line.
Figure 4: Crossrail 1 Map
Source: ‘Crossrail Route Maps.’ (n.d.).
4.2 England: From municipal control to neoliberalism
19th century England presented a moment in which local governments (councils) were recognised as political entities, and began as the service providers of welfare for their constituents (formally recognised under the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act) (Crewe, 2016, p. 2). Municipalities bought out resources like electricity and water to deliver these services to their constituents “…safely, fairly, accountably and at reasonable prices, reinvesting the considerable income in further improvements.” (Crewe, 2016, p. 2) While rail projects remained a discussion between private entities and central government, borough councils in London increasingly became the service providers of welfare, including, other public transport initiatives such as tramways.
Planning and transport planning changed dramatically after the Second World War and represented a time of active rebuilding, ‘financed by the national government but constructed and owned by local authorities.’ (Fainstein, 2010, p. 66). The modern planning system in England was established by the Town and Country Planning Act in 1947, which among other things nationalised the right to develop land which brought it under public control. During this period, local
plan-create a development plan (ISOCARP, 2015, p. 1648). A wave of nationalising service provision occurred over council-owned and operated resources such as gas, water and electricity, and councils lost much of their independence and income (Crewe, 2016, p. 3). Thus, the rise of centralised welfare and regional planning, also meant a loss of power for local government who could less effectively adapt the services delivered in their areas.
The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, would not only implement deep levels of deregulation in England, but would expose the volatility of heavily centralised welfare system at the local level. Thatcher’s government:
“…reduced council funding; placed caps on their rates of spending and taxation…; centralised the collection of business rates and began redistributing the income according to a formula devised in Whitehall; deregulated bus services; forced councils to put services out to tender…created ‘urban development corporations’…exempt from local government regulation and taxes.” (Crewe, 2016, p. 13).
Thatcher’s government not only reduced local services, but deeply intertwined service provision with private corporations as to create a pro-business system. Within this context, councils had no choice but to turn to private actors to fund their services. Nowhere was this more fervently demonstrated than her decision to abolish the labour-led GLC that pushed back against the elimination of social programmes (Fainstein, 2010, p. 68). The Thatcher years, and the associated neoliberal and market-oriented policies dismantled much of the state and non-corporate influence over sectors of the UK economy, and promoted an ethos of individualism and consumerism to combat against non-corporate forms of solidarity like unions and social movements (Harvey, 2005, p. 59). These policies, known as the ‘big bang’ of financial deregulation, propelled the expansion of financial firms in London and boosted employment (Hebbert, 2014, p. 182).
In the aftermath of state retrenchment and deregulation, private companies began to fill the planning and governance gap left by the hollowing of government. Planning turned away from a way of rebalancing welfare programmes toward “…inter-regional competitive ‘catch-up’ through promoting the potential for growth in each region, with growth in ‘growth-regions’ regarded as a source of international competitiveness rather than something to be redirected to help other parts of the country.” (Allmendinger & Haughton, 2011, p. 95). During this period, the government established urban development corporations (UDCs), which were “…planning bodies for areas under their jurisdiction, overriding local control.” (Fainstein, 2011, p. 67) These bodies were meant to attract capital to disadvantaged areas of the city, through loosening of regulation and lowering of taxes (Fainstein, 2011, p. 67). Perhaps one of the most famous examples of a UDC was the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), which was set up to redevelop Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs into London’s global financial headquarters (Fainstein, 2011, p. 67). Such local transformations in planning represent an extension of the larger shift towards globalised financial centres: “…by keeping the City of London as a central player in global finance it increasingly turned the heartland of British economy London and the south-east into a dynamic centre of ever-increasing wealth and power.” (Harvey, 2007, p. 62) Such changes represented a stark turn towards economic and growth based foundations for planning.
In 2000, the formation of the Greater London Authority (G.L.A.) was created to assure a higher level of local input and consensus over the economic agenda of the city of London. During this governance shift, corporate interest scrambled to ensure that their influence over planning in London would be maintained (Thornley et al., 2005, p. 1948). The Mayor’s office stayed tethered
to the participation of business interests because of its financial autonomy remained weak (Thornley et al., 2005, p. 1963). The advent of the G.L.A. maintained a strong inter-dependent relationship, whereby the city and local businesses were mutually dependent to promote and go forward with their interests (Thornley et al., 2005, p. 1964).
Today, taxation remains a highly centralised system in England in which most taxes are collected by central government and then redirected to the localities (borough councils) in the form of grants. Localities are restricted in the level of local tax (council tax) that they can leverage, which is their only revenue stream coming directly from income tax. For many decades, councils received their income largely from grants and business rates (business rates being collected by central government and redistributed on the basis of need) (‘How is local government funded?’, 2015). But grants have been incrementally cut, and between 2010 and 2015 were cut by 37% across England (‘How is local government funded?’, 2015). Additionally, before 2013 business rates were collected by the central government and redistributed based on need, by 2020, central government has pledged to allow councils to keep all of the business rates in order to encourage business growth in boroughs (Citizen’s Assembly, 2015). However, this business taxation scheme has also been accompanied by the slashing of all core central government funding to most councils by 2020 (Bounds, 2017).
In terms of control over planning, localities are bound by the National Policy Planning Framework (NPPF) (a document amalgamating a variety of policy guidance documents, first published in 2012) set by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. This document sets out a framework for the decision-making process and planning process at the local government level in England. Additionally, it sets out national objectives (such as environmental and economic objectives), which localities must keep in mind when developing their local plans, called Local Implementation Plans (LIPs) (Great Britain & Department for Communities and Local Government, 2012). Local plans outline a council’s goals, policies and implementation strategies. Localities in England are responsible for a host of services, and since the 2012 Localism Act responsibilities across the board have been further devolved under the guise of increasing flexibility and the ability of localities to adapt to regional particularities (‘Plain English Guide to the localism Act,’ 2011). In planning terms, English localities remain quite bound by the fiscal power and to a certain extent the administrative power (i.e. the NPPF) of the central government. This demonstrates that in England, though devolution is meant to encourage ‘local adaptability’: “…the scope for policy innovation…is often limited by pressures to ensure that measures adopted by devolved administrations do not contradict those of the central state…” (Shaw et al., 2009, p. 547).
In terms of local transport and accessibility policy, metros and other forms of public transportation are often dealt with separately. Large-scale projects like metros (Crossrail 1) are generally and overwhelmingly decided by central government due to funding they need to get built. Today, expensive infrastructure projects are implemented through a ‘streamlined process’ known as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIPs). Other transport provision, such as buses are planned and contracted out by London’s Transport Authority, Transport for London (TfL) (TfL, n.d.). Other forms of transport policy such as cycle lanes, are directed by councils in their LIPs, which are required to follow the guidance set out in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy, which is then funded by TfL (TfL, 2018). TfL is funded primarily through fare revenues, incomes such
4.3 Amsterdam: Standardisation of service provision through centralisation
The North-South Line is a metro line running in the city from Buikslotermeerplein in Amsterdam Noord, to Zuid station in Zuidas. (Amsterdam, G., 2016). The North-South line is 9.5 kilometres metro line with a cost of 3.1 billion euros and carrying an average of 73,000 passengers a day (‘Transport figures,’ 2018). This metro is the first to connect Amsterdam Noord to the city, which separated by the IJ river. The line has 8 stops, with service to Amsterdam Centraal (the city’s largest transfer station) and Zuidas, a financial district hosting many international offices. The line also improves connections to Schiphol, the country’s most important airport (de Jong, 2010).
Figure 5: Noord-Zuidlijn Map
Amsterdam’s planning history follows a different trajectory than that of London. In the 19th century, the municipal government acquired municipal lands which it could subsequently rent to private development (lease hold rights). Through this initiative, the municipal government significantly raised its local revenue stream (Fainstein, 2011, p. 83). Like London, Amsterdam embarked on a change in urban planning in the post-war period. This period was mostly focused on housing provision, due to the shortage in the city. With strong holds over land ownership, the municipality embarked on building housing, 90 percent of which between 1945 and 1985 was for social housing (Fainstein, 2011, p. 83-84). In terms of transport planning, Amsterdam had engaged in a renewal project which proposed to destroy much of the inner city to accommodate cars and modern dwellings. But according to Susan Fainstein, this modernization project was one of social welfare: “[w]orking class families, not business and the middle class, were the intended beneficiaries.” (Fainstein, 2011, p. 85) Nevertheless, the project was met with much resistance from citizens who opposed the idea of “…mass production of housing for an undifferentiated public.” (Fainstein, 2011, p. 85). Amsterdam’s planning history (both in terms of spatial planning and transport planning) is accompanied by a history of citizen resistance. However, resistance and ‘commitment’ within the municipality to heed to citizen demands have not made the city impenetrable to the forces of globalized capital.
Like in England, fiscal policy with regards to welfare in the Netherlands began with local welfare initiatives. Localities were often responsible for services like roads, energy supply and policing (Bos, 2014, p. 35). But because municipalities were financed locally (through local taxes,
